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ing; it is not the eating, nor it is not the drinking, nobody else. I, perceiving what an opinion he had that is to be blamed, but the excess. So in pride.

King.

A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness sake; just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat: if every man should buy, or if there were many buyers, they would never agree; one would buy what the other liked not, or what the other had bought before, so there would be a confusion. But that charge being committed to one, he, according to his discretion, pleases all. If they have not what they would have one day, they shall have it the next, or something as good.

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me,

of and that it was only melancholy that troubled him, took him in hand, warranted him, if he would follow my directions, to cure him in a short time. I desired him to let me be alone about an hour, and then to come again; which he was very willing to. In the in a piece of taffeta, and put strings to the taffeta; mean time, I got a card, and wrapped it up handsome neck; withal charged him, that he should not disorder and when he came, gave it to him to hang about his himself, neither with eating or drinking, but eat very little of supper, and say his prayers duly when he went to bed; and I made no question but he would be well in three or four days. Within that time I went to dinner to his house, and asked him how he did! He said he was much better, but not perfectly well; for, in truth, he had not dealt clearly with me; he had four devils in his head, and he perceived two of them were gone, with that which I had given him, but the other two troubled him still. Well,' said I, I am glad two of them are gone; I make no doubt to get away the other two likewise.' So I gave him another thing to hang about his neck. Three days after, he came to me to my chamber, and professed he was now as well as ever he was in his life, and did extremely thank me for the great care I had taken of him. I, fearing lest he might relapse into the like distemper, told him that there was none but myself and one physician more in the whole town that could cure the devils in the head, and that was Dr Harvey (whom I had prepared), and wished him, if ever he found himself ill in my absence, to go to him, for he could cure his disease as well as myself. The gentleman lived many years, and was never troubled after.

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We quote the following morsel from the preface to Selden's History of Tithes:'

[Free Inquiry.]

For the old sceptics that never would profess that they had found a truth, yet showed the best way to search for any, when they doubted as well of what those of the dogmatical sects too credulously received for infallible principles, as they did of the newest conclusions. They were indeed, questionless, too nice, and deceived themselves with the nimbleness of their own sophisms, that permitted no kind of established truth. But, plainly, he that avoids their disputing levity, yet, being able, takes to himself their liberty of inquiry, is in the only way that in all kinds of studies leads and lies open even to the sanctuary of truth; while others that are servile to common opi-| nion and vulgar suppositions, can rarely hope to be admitted nearer than into the base court of her temple, which too speciously often counterfeits her inmost sanctuary.

JAMES USHER.

The man who, along with Selden, at this time lish learning throughout civilised Europe, was his contributed most to extend the reputation of Engfriend JAMES USHER, archbishop of Armagh, and born at Dublin in 1581, and would have devoted primate of Ireland. This celebrated scholar was himself to the law, had not the death of his father, whose wishes pointed to that profession, allowed him to follow his own inclination for theology. He succeeded to his father's estate, but, wishing to devote himself uninterruptedly to study, gave it up to his brother, reserving for himself only a sufficiency for his maintenance at college and the purchase of books. He early displayed great zeal against the Roman Catholics; and, notwithstanding the mildness of his personal character, continued throughout his life to manifest a highly in

tolerant spirit towards them. In 1606 he visited England, and became intimate with Camden and Sir Robert Cotton, to the former of whom he communicated some valuable particulars about the an

cient state of Ireland and the history of Dublin: these were afterwards inserted by Camden in his 'Britannia.' For thirteen years subsequently to 1607, Usher filled the chair of divinity in the university of Dublin, in performing the duties of which he confined his attention chiefly to the controversies between the Protestants and Catholics. At the convocation of the Irish clergy in 1615, when they determined to assert their independence as a national church, the articles drawn up on the occasion emanated chiefly from his pen; and by asserting in them the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation in their broadest aspect, as well as by his advocacy of the rigorous observance of the Sabbath, and his known opinion, that bishops were not a distinct order in the church, but only superior in degree to presbyters, he exposed himself to the charge of being a favourer of Puritanism. Having been accused as such to the king, he went over to England in 1619, and, in a conference with his majesty, so fully cleared himself, that he was ere long appointed to the see of Meath, and in 1624 to the archbishopric of Armagh. Soon afterwards he gave evidence of his intolerant spirit towards the Catholics, by acting as the leading man at the drawing up of a protestation commencing thus:-The religion of the Papists is superstitious and idolatrous; their faith and doctrine erroneous and heretical; their church, in respect of both, apostatical. To give them, therefore, a toleration, or to consent that they may freely exercise their religion, and profess their faith and doctrine, is a grievous sin.' At a subsequent period, Usher's zeal showed itself in a more creditable shape on the occasion of a letter from the king to the Irish archbishops, complaining of the increase of Popery in Ireland. He invited persons of the Catholic persuasion to his house, and endeavoured to convert them by friendly argument, in which attempt his great skill in disputation is said to have given him considerable success. During the political convulsions of Charles's reign, Usher, in a treatise entitled The Power of the Prince, and Obedience of the Subject, maintained the absolute unlawfulness of taking up arms against the king. The Irish rebel

lion, in 1641, drove him to England, where he settled at Oxford, then the residence of Charles. Subsequently the civil war caused him repeatedly to change his abode, which was finally the Countess of Peterborough's seat at Ryegate, where he died in 1656, at the age of seventy-five. Most of his writings relate to ecclesiastical history and antiquities, and were mainly intended to furnish arguments against the Catholics; but the production for which he is chiefly celebrated is a great chronological work entitled Annales, or Annals,' the first part of which was published in 1650, and the second in 1654. It is a chronological digest of universal history, from the creation of the world to the dispersion of the Jews in Vespasian's reign. The author intended to add a third part, but died before accomplishing his design. In this work, which was received with great applause by the learned throughout Europe, and has been several times reprinted on the continent, the author, by fixing the three epochs of the deluge, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and their return from Babylon, has reconciled the chronologies of sacred and profane history; and down to the present time, his chronological system is that which is generally received. A posthumous work, which he left unfinished, was printed in 1660, under the title of Chronologia Sacra; it is accounted a valuable production, as a guide to the study of sacred history, and as showing the grounds and calculations of the principal epochs of the Annals.'

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the Roman Catholic church appeared to him to be best entitled. For some time after this, he studied at the Jesuits' college at Douay; but his friends induced him to return to Oxford, where, after additional study of the points of difference, he declared in favour of the Protestant faith. This drew him into several controversies, in which he employed the arguments that were afterwards methodically stated in his famous work entitled The Religion of the Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation, published in 1637. This treatise, which has placed its author in the first rank of religious controversialists, is considered a model of perspicuous reasoning, and one of the ablest defences of the Protestant cause. The author maintains that the Scripture is the only rule to which appeal ought to be made in theological disputes; that no church is infallible; and that the apostles' creed embraces all the necessary points of faith. The latitudinarianism of Chillingworth brought upon him the appellations of Arian and Socinian; and his character for orthodoxy was still further shaken by his refusal to accept of preferment, on condition of subscribing the thirty-nine articles. His scruples having, however, been overcome, he was promoted, in 1638, to the chancellorship of Salisbury. During the civil war, he zealously adhered to the royal party, and even acted as engineer at the siege of Gloucester in 1643. He died in the succeeding year. Lord Clarendon, who was one of his intimate friends, has drawn the following

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the maintenance, perhaps, of truth, but perhaps only
the profession of it, in one place, and the oppression of
it in a hundred? What will follow from it but the
preservation, peradventure, of unity, but, peradven-
ture, only of uniformity, in particular states and
churches; but the immortalising the greater and
more lamentable divisions of Christendom and the
world? And, therefore, what can follow from it but,
perhaps, in the judgment of carnal policy, the tem-
poral benefit and tranquillity of temporal states and
kingdoms, but the infinite prejudice, if not the deso-
lation, of the kingdom of Christ!
But they
that know there is a King of kings, and Lord of lords,
by whose will and pleasure kings and kingdoms stand
and fall, they know that to no king or state anything
can be profitable which is unjust; and that nothing
can be more evidently unjust than to force weak men,
by the profession of a religion which they believe not,
to lose their own eternal happiness, out of a vain and
needless fear lest they may possibly disturb their tem-
poral quietness. There is no danger to any state from
any man's opinion, unless it be such an opinion, by
which disobedience to authority, or impiety, is taught
or licensed (which sort, I confess, may justly be
punished as well as other faults), or unless this san-
guinary doctrine be joined with it, that it is lawful
for him by human violence to enforce others to it.
Therefore, if Protestants did offer violence to other
men's consciences, and compel them to embrace their
reformation, I excuse them not.

[Reason must be appealed to in Religious Discussions.]

But you that would not have men follow their reason, what would you have them follow their passions, or pluck out their eyes, and go blindfold! No, you say; you would have them follow authority. In God's name let them; we also would have them follow authority; for it is upon the authority of univer sal tradition that we would have them believe Scripture. But then, as for the authority which you would have them follow, you will let them see reason why they should follow it. And is not this to go a little about-to leave reason for a short turn, and then to come to it again, and to do that which you condemn in others? It being, indeed, a plain impossibility for any man to submit his reason but to reason; for he that doth it to authority, must of necessity think himself to have greater reason to believe that authority.

character of this eminent divine:-'He was a man of so great a subtilty of understanding, and so rare a temper in debate, that, as it was impossible to provoke him into any passion, so it was very difficult to keep a man's self from being a little discomposed by his sharpness and quickness of argument, and instances, in which he had a rare facility, and a great advantage over all the men I ever knew.' Writing to a Catholic, in allusion to the changes of his own faith, Chillingworth says I know a man, that of a moderate Protestant turned a Papist, and the day that he did so, was convicted in conscience that his yesterday's opinion was an error. The same man afterwards, upon better consideration, became a doubting Papist, and of a doubting Papist a confirmed Protestant. And yet this man thinks himself no more to blame for all these changes, than a traveller, who, using all diligence to find the right way to some remote city, did yet mistake it, and after find his error and amend it. Nay, he stands upon his justification so far, as to maintain that his alterations, not only to you, but also from you, by God's mercy, were the most satisfactory actions to himself that ever he did, and the greatest victories that ever he obtained over himself, and his affections, in those things which in this world are most preBut how is this doctrine [of the forgiveness of incious. In the same liberal spirit are written the juries] received in the world? What counsel would following passages, extracted from his great work:-men, and those none of the worst sort, give thee in

[Against the Employment of Force in Religion.] I have learned from the ancient fathers of the church, that nothing is more against religion than to force religion; and of St Paul, the weapons of the Christian warfare are not carnal. And great reason; for human violence may make men counterfeit, but cannot make them believe, and is therefore fit for nothing but to breed form without and atheism within. Besides, if this means of bringing men to embrace any religion were generally used (as, if it may be justly used in any place by those that have power, and think they have truth, certainly they cannot with reason deny, but that it may be used in every place by those that have power as well as they, and think they have truth as well as they), what could follow but

A collection of nine sermons, preached by Chillingworth before Charles L., has been frequently printed. From one of these we select the following animated expostulation with his noble hearers :

[Against Duelling.]

such a case? How would the soberest, discreetest, well-bred Christian advise thee? Why, thus: If thy brother or thy neighbour have offered thee an injury, or an affront, forgive him? By no means; thou art utterly undone, and lost in reputation with the world, if thou dost forgive him. What is to be done, then? Why, let not thy heart take rest, let all other business and employment be laid aside, till thou hast his blood. How! A man's blood for an injurious, passionate speech-for a disdainful look! Nay, that is not all: that thou mayest gain among men the reputation of a discreet, well-tempered murderer, be sure thou killest him not in passion, when thy blood is hot and boiling with the provocation; but proceed with as great temper and settledness of reason, with as much discretion and preparedness, as thou wouldest to the communion : after several days' re

spite, that it may appear it is thy reason guides thee, fellowship under his friend Sir Henry Saville as and not thy passion, invite him kindly and courteously provost. Of this, after the defeat of the royal party, into some retired place, and there let it be determined he was deprived, for refusing to take the 'engagewhether his blood or thine shall satisfy the injury. ment,' or oath of fidelity, to the Commonwealth of Oh, thou holy Christian religion! Whence is it England, as then established without a king or that thy children have sucked this inhuman poison-house of lords. By cutting off the means of subsistous blood, these raging fiery spirits? For if we shall ence, his ejection reduced him to such straits, that inquire of the heathen, they will say, They have not at length he was under the necessity of selling the learned this from us; or of the Mahometans, they greater part of his library, on which he had exwill answer, We are not guilty of it. Blessed God! pended £2500, for less than a third of that sum. that it should become a most sure settled course for a This he did from a spirit of independence, which reman to run into danger and disgrace with the world, fused to accept the pecuniary bounty liberally offered if he shall dare to perform a commandment of Christ, by his friends. Besides sermons and miscellanies which is as necessary for him to do, if he have any (the former of which compose the chief portion of his hopes of attaining heaven, as meat and drink is for works), he wrote a famous Tract concerning Schism the maintaining of life! That ever it should enter and Schismatics, in which the causes of religious disinto Christian hearts to walk so curiously and exactly union, and, in particular, the bad effects of Episcontrary unto the ways of God! That whereas he copal ambition, are freely discussed. This tract sees himself every day, and hour almost, contemned having come to the hands of Archbishop Laud, who and despised by thee, who art his servant, his creawas an old acquaintance of the author, Hales adture, upon whom he might, without all possible im- dressed a letter in defence of it to the primate, who putation of unrighteousness, pour down all the vials having invited him to a conference, was so well satisof his wrath and indignation; yet he, notwithstanding, fied, that he forced, though not without difficulty, a is patient and long-suffering towards thee, hoping that prebendal stall of Windsor on the acceptance of the his long-suffering may lead thee to repentance, and needy but contented scholar. The learning, abilities, beseeching thee daily by his ministers to be reconciled and amiable dispositions of John Hales are spoken unto him; and yet thou, on the other side, for a dis- of in the highest terms, not only by Clarendon, but tempered passionate speech, or less, should take upon by Bishop Pearson, Dr Heylin, Andrew Marvell, and thee to send thy neighbour's soul, or thine own, or Bishop Stillingfleet. He is styled by Anthony Wood likely both, clogged and oppressed with all your sinsa walking library;'* and Pearson considered him to unrepented of (for how can repentance possibly consist with such a resolution?), before the tribunal-seat of God, to expect your final sentence; utterly depriving yourself of all the blessed means which God has contrived for thy salvation, and putting thyself in such an estate, that it shall not be in God's power almost to do thee any good. Pardon, I beseech you, my earnestness, almost intemperateness, seeing that it hath proceeded from so just, so warrantable a ground; and since it is in your power to give rules of honour and reputation to the whole kingdom, do not you teach others to be ashamed of this inseparable badge of your religion-charity and forgiving of offences: give men leave to be Christians without danger or dishonour; or, if religion will not work with you, yet let the laws of that state wherein you live, the earnest desires and care of your righteous prince, prevail with you.

JOHN HALES.

JOHN HALES (1584-1656) is by Mosheim classed with Chillingworth, as a prominent defender of rational and tolerant principles in religion. He was highly distinguished for his knowledge of the Greek language, of which he was appointed professor at Oxford in 1612. Six years afterwards, he went to Holland as chaplain to Sir Dudley Carleton, ambassador at the Hague; and on this occasion he attended the meetings of the famous synod of Dort, the proceedings of which are recorded in his published letters to Sir Dudley. Till this time, he held the Calvinistic opinions in which he had been educated; but the arguments of the Arminian champion Episcopius, urged before the synod, made him, according to his own expression, bid John Calvin good night.' His letters from Dort are characterised by Lord Clarendon as the best memorial of the ignorance, and passion, and animosity, and injustice of that convention. Although the eminent learning and abilities of Hales would certainly have led to high preferment in the church, he chose rather to live in studious retirement, and accordingly withdrew to Eton college, where he had a private

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* Clarendon's Life of Himself, i. 27.

be a man of as great a sharpness, quickness, and
subtilty of wit, as ever this or perhaps any nation
bred. His industry did strive, if it were possible, to
equal the largeness of his capacity, whereby he be-
came as great a master of polite, various, and uni-
versal learning, as ever yet conversed with books.'†
His extensive knowledge he cheerfully communicated
to others; and his disposition being liberal, obliging,
and charitable, made him, in religious matters, a de-
termined foe to intolerance, and, in society, a highly
agreeable companion. Lord Clarendon says, that 'no-
thing troubled him more than the brawls which were
grown from religion; and he therefore exceedingly
detested the tyranny of the church of Rome, more
for their imposing uncharitably upon the consciences
of other men, than for the errors in their own opi-
nions; and would often say, that he would renounce
the religion of the church of England to-morrow, if
it obliged him to believe that any other Christians
should be damned; and that nobody would conclude
another man to be damned, who did not wish him
No man more strict and severe to himself; to
other men so charitable as to their opinions, that he
thought that other men were more in fault for their
carriage towards them, than the men themselves
were who erred; and he thought that pride and
passion, more than conscience, were the cause of all
John
separation from each other's communion.'
Aubrey, who saw him at Eton after his sequestra-
tion, describes him as 'a pretty little man, sanguine,
of a cheerful countenance, very gentle and cour-
teous.'

So.

The style of his sermons is clear, simple, and in general correct; and the subjects are frequently illustrated with quotations from the ancient philosophers and Christian fathers.§ The subjoined ex

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tracts are from a sermon, Of Inquiry and Private your eyes to direct you, and your legs to support you, Judgment in Religion.

men.

[Private Judgment in Religion.]

*

*

in your course of integrity and sanctity; you may no
more refuse or neglect the use of it, and rest your-
selves upon the use of other men's reason, than neglect
your own and call for the use of other men's eyes and
legs. The man in the gospel, who had bought a farm,
excuses himself from going to the marriage-supper,
because himself would go and see it: but we have
taken an easier course; we can buy our farm, and go ||
to supper too, and that only by saving our pains to
see it; we profess ourselves to have made a great
purchase of heavenly doctrine, yet we refuse to see it !!
and survey it ourselves, but trust to other men's eyes,
and our surveyors: and wot you to what end! I
know not, except it be, that so we may with the better
leisure
go to the marriage-supper; that, with Haman,
we may the more merrily go in to the banquet pro-
vided for us; that so we may the more freely betake
ourselves to our pleasures, to our profits, to our trades,
to our preferments and ambition."
Would you see how ridiculously we abuse ourselves
when we thus neglect our own knowledge, and securely
Give me leave,
hazard ourselves upon others' skill?
then, to show you a perfect pattern of it, and to report
to you what I find in Seneca the philosopher, re-
corded of a gentleman in Rome, who, being purely
ignorant, yet greatly desirous to seem learned, pro-
cured himself many servants, of which some he caused
to study the poets, some the orators, some the histo-
rians, some the philosophers, and, in a strange kind
of fancy, all their learning he verily thought to be
his own, and persuaded himself that he knew all that
his servants understood; yea, he grew to that height
of madness in this kind, that, being weak in body and
diseased in his feet, he provided himself of wrestlers
and runners, and proclaimed games and races, and
performed them by his servants; still applauding
himself, as if himself had done them. Beloved, you
are this man: when you neglect to try the spirits, to
study the means of salvation yourselves, but content
yourselves to take them upon trust, and repose your-
selves altogether on the wit and knowledge of us that
are your teachers, what is this in a manner but to
account with yourselves, that our knowledge is yours,
that you know all that we know, who are but your
servants in Jesus Christ?

It were a thing worth looking into, to know the reason why men are so generally willing, in point of religion, to cast themselves into other men's arms, and, leaving their own reason, rely so much upon another man's. Is it because it is modesty and humility to think another man's reason better than our own? Indeed, I know not how it comes to pass, we account it a vice, a part of envy, to think another man's goods, or another man's fortunes, to be better than our own; and yet we account it a singular virtue to esteem our reason and wit meaner than other men's. Let us not mistake ourselves; to contemn the advice and help of others, in love and admiration to our own conceits, to depress and disgrace other men's, this is the foul vice of pride on the contrary, thankfully to entertain the advice of others, to give it its due, and ingenuously to prefer it before our own if it deserve it, this is that gracious virtue of modesty but altogether to mistrust and relinquish our own faculties, and commend ourselves to others, this is nothing but poverty of spirit and indiscretion. I will not forbear to open unto you what I conceive to be the causes of this so general an error amongst First, peradventure the dregs of the church of Rome are not yet sufficiently washed from the hearts of many men. We know it is the principal stay and supporter of that church, to suffer nothing to be inquired into which is once concluded by them. Look through Spain and Italy; they are not men, but beasts, and, Issachar-like, patiently couch down under every burden their superiors lay upon them. Secondly, a fault or two may be in our own ministry; thus, to advise men (as I have done) to search into the reasons and grounds of religion, opens a way to dispute and quarrel, and this might breed us some trouble and disquiet in our cures, more than we are willing to undergo; therefore, to purchase our own quiet, and to banish all contention, we are content to nourish this still humour in our hearers ; as the Sibarites, to procure their ease, banished the smiths, because their trade was full of noise. In the meantime, we do not see that peace, which ariseth out of ignorance, is but a kind of sloth, or moral lethargy, seeming quiet because it hath no power to move. Again, maybe the portion of knowledge in the miniEducation and breeding is nothing else but the ster himself is not over-great; it may be, therefore, authority of our teachers taken over our childhood. good policy for him to suppress all busy inquiry in Now, there is nothing which ought to be of less force his auditory, that so increase of knowledge in them with us, or which we ought more to suspect: for might not at length discover some ignorance in him. childhood hath one thing natural to it, which is a Last of all, the fault may be in the people themselves, who, because they are loath to take pains (and search great enemy to truth, and a great furtherer of deceit : into the grounds of knowledge is evermore painful), than a child: and our daily experience shows how what is that? Credulity. Nothing is more credulous are well content to take their case, to gild their vice strangely they will believe either their ancients or with goodly names, and to call their sloth modesty, one another, in most incredible reports. For, to be and their neglect of inquiry filial obedience. These able to judge what persons, what reports are credible, reasons, beloved, or some of kin to these, may be the is a point of strength of which that age is not capable: motives unto this easiness of the people, of entertain-The chiefest sinew and strength of wisdom,' saith ing their religion upon trust, and of the neglect of the inquiry into the grounds of it.

To return, therefore, and proceed in the refutation of this gross neglect in men of their own reason, and casting themselves upon other wits. Hath God given you eyes to see, and legs to support you, that so your selves might lie still, or sleep, and require the use of other men's eyes and legs? That faculty of reason which is in every one of you, even in the meanest that hears me this day, next to the help of God, is part of his composition, and is also characteristical of the age in which he writes. Besides, sir, when the language is changed, we are not sure that the sense is the same. No, sir; I am sorry Lord Hailes has done this.'-Boswell's Life of Johnson, iv. 282 ; edit. 1823.

[Children Ready to Believe.]

Epicharmus, is not easily to believe.' Have we not, then, great cause to call to better account, and examine by better reason, whatsoever we learned in so credulous and easy an age, so apt, like the softest wax, to receive every impression? Yet, notwithstanding this singular weakness, and this large and real exception which we have against education, I verily persuade myself, that if the best and strongest ground of most men's religion were opened, it would appear to be nothing else.

[Reverence for Ancient Opinions.] Antiquity, what is it else (God only excepted) but man's authority born some ages before us? Now, for

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